


The White Lights and the Blue

by Giddygeek



Category: Hot Fuzz (2007)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-19
Updated: 2007-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:49:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1634855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Giddygeek/pseuds/Giddygeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh no, dear," she said, wringing her hands. "I suppose that must be where the spaceship landed."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The White Lights and the Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to MissPamela, Alanna and Shalott for beta. :)
> 
> Written for Northland

 

 

Constable Aaron A. Aaronson had stopped three people for speeding. He'd helped an elderly woman cross the street with her groceries and politely turned down an offer to set him up with her granddaughter, or her grandson, if that was his preference. He'd also nabbed a couple Hoodies for the kind of thing he'd jealously resented their older brothers doing when he'd been in school--vandalizing the fountain with a can of spraypaint and a tube of glittery glue.

He considered it a successful, if busy, evening patrol of Sandford Village.

Just past midnight, he parked his patrol car in the little hollow off Abbey Lane, high in the hills, and looked across the valley with satisfaction. The village center twinkled cheerfully down below, the church steeple was lit up strong and bright like a beacon, and out by the castle--

Out by the castle, light was coming from below, where Mr. Staker and a team of landscape designers had installed a complicated series of spotlights to show off the classical beauty of the place. But it was also coming from above, where there should have been no lights at all.

Aaron squinted, shook his head, took his glasses off and wiped them with the cloth he kept in his breast pocket, then put them back on. The unfamiliar light was still there, but now it was...bigger? Or possibly it was smaller. Or possibly there were three lights, or maybe there were six. And they were higher than they had been a moment ago. Or was it...lower?

He found that he just couldn't be sure what he was seeing, and he swallowed nervously. It was suddenly hard to be certain of anything really; at that moment it seemed to him that up had gone sideways, and down had come inside, and his own voice sounded very far away when he said "Fuck," and fumbled for the radio under the dash.

Just as he touched it, the familiar plastic contours cool under his hand and giving him a bit of comfort--the light across the valley flared painfully bright. Aaron shut his eyes and threw up his hand, crying out. His voice echoed back to him as if it were bouncing inside something much larger than the confines of his patrol car, and then there was silence.

After a while, Aaron opened his eyes and looked back over the valley.

Everything he could see was just the same as it had been, except the castle was only lit from underneath; the light had burst, or maybe winked out. Either way, it had vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, and he found that he could hardly believe it had been there at all.

"Huh," he said, after a long pause. He hesitated over the radio, fingers on the buttons, then sat back in his seat, uneasy. Hadn't he just gotten in trouble for calling in a false report of ghosts? Wasn't it in his file, that time he thought he'd seen the Loch Ness monster swimming in the pond? Whatever the light had been, it was gone, and he'd probably be better off leaving well enough alone and not giving Inspector Angel something to ream him out for later, if that were possible.

Satisfied with that decision, he turned his attention back to the village proper, and passed the rest of his shift in a state of jittery, nervous quiet.

~

"Danny," Nicholas said, "I have something I need to discuss with you."

No. All wrong.

"Danny, would you step into my office, please?"

No. Horrible.

Nicholas tried again. If he were keeping track, this would have been attempt number 762, but he wasn't keeping track. He _wasn't_. "Danny...I was wondering if--"

"If you'd suck my big red cock," Cartwright said as he opened the door and stepped into the locker room. He easily ducked the trash can Nicholas hurled at his head.

"Mr. Staker's here asking for you," Wainwright said, smirking, trash can in hand. "Think you could take a moment from your _very_ busy schedule to meet with him?"

Cartwright was smoothing his mustache fussily, making a big show of it. "Or are you too busy making out with yourself in this mirror to bother with the peons today?"

"You should always make time for the _pee-ons_ ," Wainwright said, snickering, and he sent the trash can spinning back across the floor like a top. It banged Cartwright in the shin in the process and earned Wainwright a dirty glare and even dirtier hand gesture. Nicholas dodged it neatly and it slammed into the wall, denting the plaster and sending down a shower of dust.

"You're walking a very thin line, gentlemen," Nicholas warned, but the Andes were about as receptive to warnings as brick walls were to head-on collisions.

"Just doing our job," Cartwright said, meeting Nicholas' gaze in the mirror and raising his eyebrows. "You do remember your job, don't you?"

"He remembers what to do with his alone time." Wainwright jerked his hand in front of his crotch, leering at Nicholas in the mirror.

"Oh, bugger off," Nicholas said, rolling his eyes. "Tell Mr. Staker I'll be up, all right?"

"All right," Cartwright said, nudging Wainwright with his elbow. "We'll let him know you'll be _right along_ , eh?" It sounded as dirty and insulting as anything else either of them ever said, and they sniggered like teenaged boys, quite pleased with themselves. Nicholas waved them on and they left the locker room, still laughing but at least they were gone; that was really as much as Nicholas could ask.

He checked the mirror one more time, patting down his hair and straightening the knot in his tie. "Danny," he said, looking at himself quite seriously, "I don't suppose--oh, fuck it." He straightened his vest, took a deep breath, and headed for his office.

~

"Morning, Mr. Staker."

"Good morning," Mr. Staker said, looking up from the photographs on Nicholas' desk; Nick and Danny on various outings, the rest of the team with them sometimes and other times not, his mum, his dad. Nosy man, Mr. Staker. He showed no embarassment at all for being caught snooping and only said, "The swan's been abducted."

Nicholas froze, blinked. "I'm...I'm sorry. Come again?"

Peter Ian Staker was one of the very few people who had ever made Nicholas feel like an idiot. He had a certain look that, even if he was just saying _hullo_ as they passed on the street, seemed to imply that Nicholas had been born with only a brain stem, and no useful grey matter in his head at all.

"The _swan_ ," he said slowly, with very deliberate emphasis. "It's been _abducted_."

"I...see," Nicholas said, and he motioned Staker into a chair, sat behind his desk, and tried to look concerned. "Is it possible that he's just escaped again?"

Mr. Staker gave him a pitying look.

"It's just--it _is_ a bird," Nicholas said. "They fly, don't they? Perhaps he's simply...migrated?"

Mr. Staker sighed. "This swan doesn't fly," he said, as though Nicholas was supposed to know that already--although come to think of it, he hadn't ever seen it fly, had he? No, in all the time that he and Danny had spent chasing it around the castle grounds and most the village, the damned bird had never once lifted off the ground. He supposed that was a blessing.

Or perhaps not; if the swan had flown away, he might not have had to spend so much time stumbling after it like an idiot, afraid of its beak and beating wings and beady dark eyes.

"Plus," Mr. Staker said while Nicholas was still mentally debating the merits of large, flightless birds, "there's the small matter of the crop circles."

~

Danny was giving a presentation on careers in law enforcement at Sandford Primary. It was one of the things Nicholas had been glad to give up doing when Danny made Sergeant--making other people _want_ to be police officers had never been his strong suit. Danny was good at it; best of them all, really. He answered questions with his usual high degree of enthusiasm, plus more skill and confidence than Nicholas could have credited him with when they'd first met.

He slipped into the back of the classroom as unobtrusively as possible and stood quietly, watching as Danny wrapped it up.

"And that's why you shouldn't ever try to escape if an officer has you in handcuffs," Danny said to Barry Boyd Aaronson, who was looking up at him with stars in his eyes; between Danny and young Constable Aaronson, Barry Boyd was probably doomed to the police service.

The presentation ended with a round of applause for Danny and the students he'd chosen to assist him, and then they took a group photograph to be published in the next edition of the Sandford Citizen. All names were sure to be spelled correctly and all ages accurate, as the new reporter was still a bit traumatized by accounts of Tim Messenger's gruesome demise. He also never said "Hi-hi!" and hadn't once written a tabloid-style headline.

Circulation had fallen very low.

"I'd rather get the axe than, you know, _the axe_ ," Bill Wilson had said the last time Nicholas spoken with him, his eyes wide enough to show the whites. There was no amount of reassurance that Nicholas could offer which would make Bill stop looking over his shoulder nervously so he'd stopped trying, and quietly arranged two subscriptions for himself, getting the paper delivered both at home and at the station.

Danny beamed at him after saying his goodbyes to Bill, the students and Mrs. Williamson, their headmistress. "All right, Inspector Angel?" he asked, his round face cheerful and good-humored; he was obviously pleased to see Nicholas, as if it had been a while, though they'd breakfasted together only hours ago.

Nicholas couldn't help but smile back as he said, "Vandalism and a missing swan up at the castle, Sergeant Butterman. Feel up to a bit of investigating?"

"You know I do," Danny said cheerfully, and they rode off to the castle together, blue lights flashing.

~

The crop circle appeared to be a random pattern stomped into the ground by whomever had taken the swan, though there was a lamentable lack of shoe prints.

"It can't be extraterrestrial," Nicholas said patiently to Danny. "It's grass. And mud. On _Earth_."

"Flattened by aliens," Danny argued, eyes wide, and Mr. Staker nodded.

Nicholas closed his eyes and sighed. "Flattened, most likely, by teenage boys who've run out of spraypaint," he said, opening his eyes and tucking his notebook into his pocket. "Don't worry, Mr. Staker, we'll set up a heavy patrol and do our best to locate your swan this afternoon."

"Good luck to you," Mr. Staker said sourly. "That bird's gone. Gone for good, this time. And it'll be housepets and children next, mark my word. We'll find their poor little bodies in the forest next year, all exsanguinated."

" _Exsanguinated_ ," Danny repeated, horrified. "Who'd toss a helpless swan--"

"That's defenstration, Sergeant," Nicholas said, glaring at Mr. Staker; of all the ideas to put in Danny's head. "Exsanguinated means dead, and all drained of blood."

~

Back at the station, Nicholas left Danny and Sergeant Fisher to coordinate a heavier patrol around the castle and retired to his office, frowning at them thoughtfully through his window. Danny still looked bothered, his cheeks a bit flushed, his brow wrinkled; he was probably unable to forget Mr. Staker's dire predictions.

Danny was quite fond of animals--he was quite fond of children too, and of everyone else, really. He was even fond of the Peace Lily Nicholas had bought him to replace the one that'd gotten blown up. He cared for it quite carefully, although he left it at Nicholas' cottage. They were sharing it, he insisted, which gave him the right to come over whenever he pleased, drink beer in Nicholas' kitchen, watch movies on his couch, and generally help himself to large quantities of Nicholas' free time.

Nicholas didn't mind. The Peace Lily was thriving.

"We've got Constables Aaronson and Harrison on patrol up at the castle," Danny said, leaning in his doorway. "Aaronson said he saw a bright light over the castle last night, by the way. He didn't report it because of that Nessie incident. You may want to go a little easier on him, next time."

Nicholas pinched the bridge of his nose. "Tell Aarsonson he needs to report everything he sees, _everything_ , and worry about what we'll think--no, nevermind, I'll tell him myself."

"Yes, well." Danny shook his head. "Perhaps he might be more inclined to do that if he didn't think he was going to get yelled at every time he saw a monster. But they're on patrol, and the Andes are asking after the swan. We should be out of here in good time tonight. And I was thinking that after the pub, perhaps you should come by and watch _Signs_ and that X-Files movie. Research, you know."

"Danny. We're not being invaded by aliens."

"Perhaps we are," Danny said, eyebrows raised at him ."Something's always happening, aren't it?"

" _That's_ why you're advocating for alien abduction?" Nicholas asked, appalled, and Danny shrugged, grinning.

"This is Sandford," he said. "I think alien abduction is about as likely as common vandalism and theft, don't you?"

"No." Nicholas shook his head. "Even in Sandford, sometimes a crime is just a crime."

"Oh, and in that case sometime's a movie is just a movie--will you be coming by?"

"Yes," Nicholas said, and he smiled a little. "You know I will."

~

"About the talk you gave at the primary school," Nicholas said when they'd had a few pints and were stumbling back to Danny's cottage, arms over each other's shoulders. He was perhaps a bit more sober than he was playing at, or perhaps a lot, but Danny didn't need to know that. "Danny. Danny. Have you ever actually _been_ handcuffed?"

"Once," Danny said, leaning against him, solid and warm. "Sissy Skinner had these shiny plastic ones--he used to handcuff us kids behind old Mr. Webley's shed when we was teenagers; cops and robbers, like. Or doctors. I never did understand why a doctor would have shiny plastic handcuffs."

Nicholas reared back, appalled. "Danny--"

"Surprised the man grew up to be a serial killer and not a surgeon," Danny said, and there was enough of an amused twinkle in his eyes to make Nicholas' rising, ferocious desire to rip Simon Skinner apart piece by piece subside a little.

"The real ones are probably a bit more difficult to get out of," Nicholas said, slowly, casually. "But I could show you a safe way how, if you'd like?"

Danny looked fascinated, as he always did when it came to the police work Nicholas still sometimes offered to teach him. As he always looked at Nicholas, really. It tended to be...gratifying. Nicholas liked it.

"Yeah?" Danny said, his hand shifting on the back of Nicholas' neck as they turned the corner to his lane. His warm fingers brushed across Nicholas' nape. "Yeah, I think I'd like that."

Nicholas shivered a little, pleasantly, and smiled. "I thought you might."

~

"A twist of the wrist, like so," Nicholas murmured, and demonstrated, "is generally the best method, I find."

Danny's back arched and he panted. "I don't think I could move my wrist like that even if I weren't all tied up behind my own back," he said. "Do you think--"

Nicholas' mobile rang on the side table. He automatically leaned over to see the screen; the station. "Fuck," he said, sitting back. Danny watched him with wide eyes and Nicholas watched back as he answered. Danny's flush was fading as the alcohol wore off, his sweater was bunched up from his tussle with the cuffs, his dark hair was messy and a little sweaty. Nicholas only caught half of what Sergeant Turner was saying, just enough to know his night was ruined, ruined, and before he'd had a chance to say a thing.

"We'll be right there," he told Sergeant Turner, raising an eyebrow as Danny slumped against the back of the couch with an aggravated groan. "Have Tony secure the scene until we arrive."

"Problem?" Danny asked when he hung up. His mouth was swollen and pink from being bitten as he focused. Nicholas looked at him for a long moment, then sighed and reached for the keys to his cuffs.

"Turner says there's a spot of bother up at Henderson Farm," he said, fumbling behind Danny's back, his fingers brushing Danny's wrists and warm palms. "More vandalism. And--"

"And?"

"And a missing peacock," Nicholas admitted, sighing again as the cuffs fell away into his hands, and then they were on their way to Henderson Farm.

~

"Bright lights," old Mr. Henderson said. "In the sky. And a noise."

Nicholas made a note, confirming Aaronson's report of lights. Mr. Staker didn't actually live on the castle grounds; he had a small flat in the village center, above the pub. He hadn't heard or seen a thing out of the ordinary. "What kind of noise, sir?"

"Like flies buzzing over a meal of your blood in the bowels of Hell," Mr. Henderson said. "And snow, like on your telly in the early morning."

"And when you came out to investigate, you found this?" Danny was playing his torch over the fields, where the long grass was bent in a swirling pattern obvious even in the dark. "And the peacock missing?"

"If they harm Mr. Feathers, they'll pay most dearly," Mr. Henderson said, cocking his old rifle. "I tell you, _most_ dearly."

"Yes, well," Nicholas said, eyeing him warily--elderly men with guns put him a bit on edge, these days. "Bear in mind that it's probably just young boys having a lark, sir, and look twice before you shoot, all right?"

"Ha," Mr. Henderson said, spitting on the ground at their feet. "A teenaged boy, an alien, what's the difference to me? I'll shoot as I like, Inspector Angel, if'n the buggers are on my own property."

Nicholas rubbed the tip of his shoe clean on the grass. "Understood," he said grimly, then tipped his head at Danny. "Come on, Sergeant, let's get back to the station and see what we can find out. We'll call you, Mr. Henderson, if we have any leads."

"See that you do," Mr. Henderson said, spitting again and getting the tip of Nicholas' other shoe.

Nicholas rolled his eyes and dragged Danny off when he seemed reluctant to leave the crop circle, and they drove back to the station through sweetly scented, warm night air, the empty streets and fields calm around them.

"Still not aliens?" Danny asked through a yawn, and Nicholas glanced at him, smiled.

"Still not aliens," he said. "Perhaps teenagers with all terrain vehicles? Could you hazard a guess as to how many there might be in the village?"

"Cor. Everyone's got them 'round here--hundreds," Danny said. "I have two myself in a shed at--where my parents used to live."

Nicholas glanced at him again, then reached out a bit tentatively and touched his knee, light, faint pressure. "Have you been out trampling grass and stealing birds while I'm not looking, Danny?"

"No," Danny said.

"Two down then," Nicholas said and, feeling very daring, he squeezed Danny's knee before putting his hand back on the wheel and speeding through the night.

~

They fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning while back at the station making a list of likely suspects, leaning into each other on the couch in Nicholas' office. The nap was an accident but a useful one; Nicholas woke just before dawn feeling moderately refreshed, and only the slightest big hungover. He wanted a shower and a fresh shirt, but stayed still on the couch for a long moment, relaxed, with Danny's temple tipped against his jaw, Danny's warm breath on his neck.

When sunrise began to send daylight creeping through his blinds, Turner tapped on the door. Nicholas pretended to jerk awake when Danny did, and Turner said, "We hardly wanted to wake you, with you looking so peaceful and all, but there's been another incident."

~

Mrs. Wrightson said, "And that's when I heard bees buzzing somewhere inside my belly, and saw the lights of Hell shining over my garden. And when I'd come down to greet them, I noticed through the window that my flowers were trampled, and realized that the door was flung wide open, and my darling canary was missing from his cage."

"Your...canary?" Nicholas said, writing it down. It seemed off--the peacock and the swan were both huge birds, penned outside. Why would someone take two enormous birds, then sneak into an elderly woman's house to steal her canary?

"He means the world to me," Mrs. Wrightson said, sniffling. "Oh, I _do_ hope you'll find him."

"We'll do our very best," Nicholas promised, then he went off to find Danny, who was busy photographing the flattened flowers in the garden.

"I've got a description of the missing bird, Danny," he said, and Danny looked up; he was on his knees in the garden, half-hidden behind a bush in the shape of a perfect triangle.

"Come see," he said, and Nicholas peered over his shoulder to see four divots in the mud, a broad, shallow indentation between them like a large bowl had rested there.

"Lawn ornament's missing as well?" he asked Mrs. Wrightson, leaning back, a hand braced on Danny's shoulder for balance.

"Oh no, dear," she said, wringing her hands. "I suppose that must be where the spaceship landed. Oh my, oh my, I _knew_ I should have moved to Bufford Abbey after the Trouble."

Danny's shoulder went tense under Nicholas' hand; he squeezed lightly, reassuring.

"We're fairly certain it's just kids playing an elaborate prank, Mrs. Wrightson," he said. "No need to worry. Now, Sergeant Butterman and I must get this information back to the station--is there anything else you can think of, ma'am? Anything else that might help at all?"

"I won't say another word," Mrs. Wrightson declared dramatically, backing away from him.

Nicholas sighed. "Ma'am, we're only trying to help. Any information you can give us--"

"Will probably be taken right back to your evil overlords," Mrs. Wrightson said, crossing her arms over her chest and taking another step back. "I know about the police in this town! I won't tell you another thing, you, you _pod person_."

"Mrs. Wrightson. Mrs Wrightson!" Nicholas called to her as she turned and stomped away, but she didn't listen. She disappeared back into her house, shaking her head as she slammed the door shut. It locked with a click audible even from the garden, and then the lace curtain beside it twitched; she was peeking out at them, glaring, afraid.

"Pod people," Nicholas said, disgusted, and he held out his hand to help pull Danny up. "This place doesn't know if it wants to be Village of the Year or Village of the Damned!"

"Fool us once is all," Danny said, shrugging away from Nicholas' hand and trudging away. He looked over his shoulder when Nicholas didn't follow right away and said, "What, can't you understand that, Nicholas? I'd really think you would."

~

Reports trickled in for the rest of the day. A budgie, an ostrich from Smithson Farm, two more canaries and a parrot, all gone by mid-afternoon.

"The saddest thing in the world is a lone lovebird," Danny said as they made their last stop of the day. He whistled to the small bird sitting alone on its perch, tucked into itself and looking about as miserable as a bird could be, then he ran a careful finger along its bright, neat wings.

Nicholas couldn't argue that, nor did he desire to try. Danny had been quiet through the afternoon--even a stop at the store had failed to rouse his typical good cheer. Slogging through muddy fields and gardens certainly hadn't helped, and the lack of even one human footprint in all that mud just made it worse.

Back at the pub, they pored over Nicholas' list of sights and sounds associated with the disappearances, trying to find a common thread and likely suspect. But it was slow going. There were lights that no one could properly describe, the sound of bees, growling dogs, screams, boiling water, squealing machines; a cornucopia of nightmare visions and sounds, all relayed to them by calm witnesses, without a blink.

That was Sandford for you, Nicholas thought, but didn't dare to say.

"Everyone thinks you're a pod person now, Inspector Angel," Cartwright said, appearing behind Danny's shoulder to glare at Nicholas. "Makes a lot of sense, I told them."

"Explained a lot, I said." Wainwright put a hand on Danny's shoulder. "Be careful around this one, Butterman," he said, sneering. "Or you just might find yourself _disappeared_."

"Oh, jog on," Danny said quietly, without his usual spark.

The Andes hesitated, looking at Nicholas with eyes that had gone all concerned--they could be utter bastards and usually were, but they actually adored Danny like a brother, and everyone knew it.

 _He'll be fine_ , Nicholas tried to convey through a look and a nod; he thought he'd probably succeeded, because the Andes shrugged at each other and wandered off, back to the bar.

Nicholas looked at Danny, who was busily writing in his notebook, and then he pushed back his chair. "Come on," he said, jostling Danny's shoulder until he looked up, curious. "Stakeout," Nicholas said, and Danny's eyes lit up a little.

"Oooh," he said. "With disguises?"

And Nicholas opened his mouth to say _no_ but what came out was, "Of course."

Thus did he find himself sitting on a picnic blanket, watching the owls in the children's zoo by the model village through his night vision binoculars, while wearing a fake handlebar mustache and a livid red fake scar.

"We should go on stakeout every night," Danny said, adjusting his ugly wig. "This is fun, isn't it."

"Stakeouts are very serious police business," Nicholas said weakly, then he took the tea cake Danny offered him and used it as an excuse to shut his stupid mouth before he said anything more.

~

Danny was asleep on his shoulder again and Nicholas was half-dozing himself when he was startled by a...noise. Something like a noise, anyway, though it was really almost more of a feeling. It rumbled in his stomach like he was about to be sick, and there was a buzz in his ear like Janine weeping hopelessly, and Danny's breath slowing, and hard rain tearing through delicate leaves.

It made Nicholas dizzy, and then got worse because no matter how he blinked his eyes, he couldn't be sure if the light in the sky had one source or a thousand sources, or if it was even coming from the sky at all. It could have been lights inside him, for all he knew or could tell then.

He pushed at Danny's shoulder, saying, "Wake up, wake up," but he sounded slurred and drunk to his own ears, and Danny woke slowly, blinking and confused.

"Nicholas? Do you hear--is that my mum?"

"I don't know what it is," Nicholas said grimly. He tried to stand but his legs wobbled and he crumpled to his knees; around him, the tall grass was lying down in patches and whirls, as if gravity had suddenly gained new force and a current, an ebb and flow that made Danny and Nicholas cry out as they were pressed toward the ground.

Nicholas struggled to keep his eyes open, to protect them, to see the danger that was surely coming, but he could only manage it for seconds at a time. The world was revealed in flashes; something metallic that was both delicate and looming touched the ground beside him and over them, the air was too pure to breath, then too hot, then gone.

A small animal-shaped thing moved across the grass, then it was larger than a lion. It turned to look at them and its red eyes flashed white light like an oncoming car that Nicholas was about to rear end. It moved towards them and away at the same time, and Nicholas fought to reach out for Danny again; their hands were slick with sweat but cold when they found each other fumbling in the grass.

Nicholas instinctively reached for but couldn't get to his baton; what good would a baton do against a threat such as this _anyway_? He didn't know--he was afraid--

And Danny was pushing his own baton into Nicholas' hand, panting in his ear, "Yes--throw it, Nick! At the light, aim for the light!"

Aim for _what_ light, and why? How could Danny know what to do?

Nicholas shook his head, overwhelmed, and Danny's hand was on his chin; he tried to focus his gaze on Danny's eyes. He looked pained but unafraid, as confident as ever that Nicholas could do anything, was the best police officer Danny had ever seen, better than Keanu or Will Smith or even Starsky and Hutch.

Danny squeezed his chin, then groaned and dropped down to all fours, succumbing to the pressure all around them. He turned his head, looked up at Nicholas frozen where he knelt, baton in hand. Danny said through gritten teeth, "Stop _thinking_ about it, Nicholas! It's right _there_! Just _throw_!"

Nicholas fought to look up, saw the animal loping towards them across the grass, and his arm ached horribly when he moved it but he fought the pain. He fought it with everything he had, and threw the baton at what he hoped, could only hope, was the center of the light.

Danny's baton hit something hard, with a clank, and then a rattle, and then a sound like a fan slowing down.

The lights pulsed, pulsed, dimmed, and the animal stopped in its tracks. For a moment it held Nicholas' gaze, its wide eyes red, white, a glinting metallic color that made him feel like the rest of the wind had been knocked out of him, and then he heard a tick.

The pressure tightened like a rubber band around his chest.

Another tick, and the pressure broke, and the light went out.

The last thing Nicholas saw before the explosion was the animal's eyes going wider, impossibly wide, with what might have been horror, he supposed. Then everything was fire. He tumbled backwards from the force of the blast, rolling through the mud and the grass, landing against a tree trunk with a jarring pain in his chest.

He had only a moment to look up through the budding branches at the cool light of the stars and think, _Danny_ , before the world went black.

~

"Nicholas! Nicholas!"

He struggled awake, swimming up from some deep place inside himself, at the sound of Danny frantically calling for him. Danny's voice was raw and hoarse, exhausted, and Nicholas opened his eyes, tested his arms and legs for pain, before crawling out from under the tree.

There was an SUV in the field with them, huge, shiny and black, with floodlights trained on a wreck of metal that still smouldered. The silhouettes of several people moved busily in the light, but Nicholas spared them only a glance, searched the shadows in the direction of Danny's voice until he saw movement.

"Danny," he said, staggering to his feet too quickly, sending sharp pains through his sides; he didn't fucking care, because there Danny was, safe, _safe_ , and marching towards him through the muck.

Danny's round face was pale and relieved, his wig flattened to his head, his fake scar peeling off, blood trickling from a cut at his temple. "All right, did you see that?" he asked, hands on his hips, breathing hard. "Aliens. Aliens, Nicholas. I told you. This is _Sandford_. And next year we'll be having vampires, and the year after that we'll have a plague of locusts, and the year after that a robot army, and we'll still never have--"

Nicholas said his name again, in a new tone, " _Danny_ ," and took a step forward.

Danny reached out and pulled him in. "--done this. If I wait for you to make the first move, we'll be a hundred years old, discovering Atlantis at the bottom of the fountain before this ever happens, is all," he said, then he leaned closer and kissed Nicholas, just like that.

And Nicholas, who knew that Danny was right and was infinitely relieved that he didn't have to be the one making the first move after all, wrapped his arms tight around Danny and wholeheartedly kissed him back.

~

"Ahem," someone said, amused, what could have been moments or hours later. "I thought we were assisting two officers on a stakeout, but if this is actually Lover's Lane, we could go."

Nicholas jumped back, startled, then touched his fingers to his mouth and took a deep breath, looking away from Danny's dazed, happy face. He blinked against the floodlights glaring from the direction of the SUV.

"Who the fuck are you?" he asked and, on seeing one of the five people silhouetted in the light coming towards them with something small wriggling and struggling in its grip, he reached for his baton. "And what the _fuck_ was that?"

"Classified _and_ classified, but I'll tell you anyway," said the same voice, and a tall man strode out of the light. He was holding--Nicholas squinted; was that a _kitten_?--in his hand.

"We're Torchwood, and we've come to pick up your rotten scoundrel," the man said, shaking the kitten gently; it dangled by the scruff of its neck and meowed piteously. "Thought we might be too late to help the two of you, but you did all right, didn't you?"

" _All right_?" Nicholas said, mindful of his battered, aching self, of Danny with the cut on his temple and his hoarse voice, of the fiery remains of the space ship, or whatever the fuck it had been.

"Well, you're alive," the man said calmly, then he held the kitten up so they could see its face; small and innocent and guileless, but with those red white eyes that gleamed even more evilly than a regular cat's did. "She's quite the nasty rascal. In her other persona she can do a fair bit of harm--that was right good luck you had, you'd be dead if that machine were still running. Stuck like this, she's actually sort of sweet though, isn't she?"

Nicholas said, "Her _other persona_?" and the man smiled at him, a cheery, easy expression.

"Leopaferocious, we call it," he said. "But anyway. I recommend you tell everyone that you saw teenage boys out here with a car full of birds and wooden boards, up to no good. You scared them off, the birds escaped, and so on. If you tell the truth, no one will believe you--and besides, then we'll have to come back and kill you."

"I don't believe what we just saw, and I knew it were aliens all along," Danny said, and the man laughed.

"Wise," he said. "Very wise. And now if you'll excuse us, we'll be on our way with your little friend here. Good luck with the birds!"

With a swirl of coat like a cape flaring behind him, he was gone, striding back to the SUV and getting in the driver's seat; the SUV roared to life and glided over the rutted pasture before Nicholas could do any more than look for its plates, let alone memorize them.

And then Danny said, "Nicholas. Look."

Birds of all shapes and sizes honked, chirped and cooed in the softly moonlit pasture; their swan was the only one on the move though, screeching irritably as it charged into the fields. Nicholas resigned himself to a week spent chasing it around the village, then got on his radio and called for reinforcements, for people to come and help them bring the rest of the birds home.

Danny held the little lovebird in his hand. "Oi, do I know a bloke who'll be happy to see you," he said to it, and Nicholas felt his heart clench. He hesitantly reached out, put his hand under Danny's, cupping it, and said, "I think I know how he feels."

And they were still holding the little bird between them when the Andes, Doris, and Sergeant Fisher came tumbling noisily into the field.

~

"Now, you're sure you're not a pod person?" Danny teased, many hours later, when they were lying limp and sweaty and sated in the bedroom of Nicholas' cottage on the hill.

"I'm sure," Nicholas said, kissing Danny' shoulder. He had one arm under Danny's neck, the other against his side, fingers curled lightly across his arm, a leg tucked between his thighs. He was fairly certain that he hadn't cuddled this much after all three of his last sexual encounters combined, but it was wonderful. "I've been trying to talk to you abut this for a long time, Danny. A _long_ time."

Danny made a soft, satisfied noise. "I thought so," he said smugly.

"Did I give myself away with the handcuffs and all?" Nicholas asked, smiling against his shoulder, settling more comfortably.

"Was that a hint?" Danny laughed, delighted. "I thought _that_ was an actual lesson in policeman-officering! I thought the hint was, you know. Everything else."

Nicholas groaned and shook his head. "I was trying to be so subtle," he said, a bit despairing of himself; he'd been subtle and controlled before Sandford, he was sure of it. But somewhere along the line, Danny had taught him to switch off, and to care, and look where that had led him.

Just look.

"Ah, well," he said. "We, uh. We got here in the end. That's all that matters, isn't it?"

"True, true," Danny said, a smile in his voice. "But if you wanted to try that hint with the handcuffs again, I wouldn't refuse the lesson--I don't suppose--"

"Now's as good a time as any, absolutely," Nicholas said, laughing. He pushed Danny over onto his back, and they tried the handcuff lesson again, with no escape but much, much more success this time.

 


End file.
